ICE Improves Tracking Technology
After being arrested in Bucks County PA, suspects place their hands on an imaging screen that scans their fingerprints into a computer linked to a federal database. This report from Morning Call.
Within minutes, prison officials can learn the person’s criminal record — whether he is wanted for other crimes and whether he is in the country illegally. That’s the latest weapon the federal government uses to track people who are illegal immigrants. The system has been in use in Bucks and Montgomery counties — the only two in Pennsylvania so far — for a couple of months. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to extend that to more than 6,000 local police booking centers and jails nationwide … in about 3 1/2 years, Thomas Decker, director of the ICE Field Office in Philadelphia, said Monday …
Criminals who are in the country illegally will be turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings only after completing their sentence in a county jail. Bucks District Attorney Michelle Henry said people simply can’t be turned over to ICE before completing prison terms. ”It’s important to serve whatever sentence that is,” she said …
Township police have arrested about a dozen people who, with the help of ICE, have been identified as being in the country illegally. Bucks was able to tap into the ICE system because its computer fingerprinting system was in place and needed only upgrades — $30,000-$40,000 worth — to complete the connection, said county Corrections Director Harris Gubernick.
ICE, Immigration Issues / Illegal Aliens, PA Bucks County, PA Montgomery County, Pennsylvania